Every business needs a person like her. An expert and true professional but not too proud to be the support structure for an artist so they can create. That in itself is an art.
Very perceptive. I was fortunate enough to work with Susan on a couple of albums, and found her to be devoid of ego and always eager to serve the song. She felt as though she “lucked into” her lot and never took it for granted.
Not an advertiser or anything, but currently reading her new book “This Is What It Sounds Like” exploring the neurology of music listening and how tastes form, and she writes as clearly and more pointedly than she speaks! She’s an MD on top of being a first rate sound engineer. Highly recommend!
Love Susan. She's real, not critical, she appreciated the genius she was working with. I honestly think she was the only person who really got how different Prince was and how beyond everyone else he was!
Why is there always this separation? I get it in sports. But music? Sound engineering? Singing? Are women at a natural disadvantage? Are men? I don't get it
I fully agree. Had this person said something to the effect of: Susan Rogers is the greatest sound engineer of all time. I would be hard pressed to disagree, and it would be far more palpable. Alan Parsons would be a close second btw ✌
You are incorrect. All of time has not occurred, therefore you have zero actual proof. And, oh... she's a woman?! No way!! What's her ethnicity and, what are her pronouns?! Very important details that need to be shared!!
I'm a massive Prince fan, but Susan Rogers is ace and doesn't get nearly enough credit, so it's awesome to see her giving more and more interviews like this so we have a real insight into how things worked in the studio. Only Prince could have been Prince... but he wouldn't have been Prince without all the people around him.
Agreed. I might also add, what Frank Zappa said about his relation with Warner Bros. "To their credit the best thing they did for Prince was to stay out of his way". That's from a business model perspective. Leave him alone and let him be uniquely him. I find it interesting how Susan captured something similiar on how engineers learned to do the same thing- be there to help him tweek stuff, but at the same time, learn the boundaries, and do not get in his way. Smothering him or take over, and you as an engineer would be replaced. Susan picked up on how different it was to work with him then it was for other musicians and she adapted well to his work ethic.
Jesus this is an absolute gift to be able to hear these intimate stories about one of the very greatest musical minds there has ever been. Susan is like a tap of truth pouring out info of princes creative process and it comes across so damn clear that you feel like you were there too. WOW, I’m blown away and super grateful for these segments. Thank you to whomever is responsible for getting us this!
One of the coolest things of being a Prince fan is to imagine that everything came from the same mind most of the times and he had the full arrangements in his head before recording it
Susan Rogers is a genius . She was so keen on understanding his musical creativity better than anyone could have done . To break down his music like that just shows how masterful Prince was and how she had to digress so to speak with other artist mix. Every instrument standing on its own independently is amazing how she described his approach is inspiring .
Wow fascinating. He was a genius. God the world was so different back then....I often drift off and think about how special and fun the 80's were (the time of my youth) and when it was over , that was it it was gone. When i hear Prince now it always makes me think back to the 80's.
@@johnjeffery6638 Well Every decade has its Defining music. Grunge was just a short Hype. Boygroup music was much much worse. Prince moved on from the 1980 ies. he as a much different musician during the 1990 ies. Did You know he was bored of Purple Rain after just 6 months
I like Susan’s notion of Prince’s music being like a “sphere”. Every instrument having a special surprise in it. I just finished recording and mixing one of my own songs. I put it on a mixing and mastering FB group to get feedback on the mix. Most of the replies were more focused on which singular instrument would be up front in the mix. I think it should change as the song unfolds. Thinking of it like a sphere vs a pyramid is a great way to think about a song when writing it and mixing. Thanks for this video DFD! Looking forward to more of this interview🤘
I went/graduated at Full Sail as a recording engineer because of Prince. Yes luved the artist n musician but was fascinated n obsessed inspired with the art of recording he possessed even moreso. Was hard finding bits in books back in 1988 about his studio skills but what little there was fully excited me to pursue it. Been a recording engineer ever since🙏🏻
Wow. I sincerely appreciate the way in which she describes not just the approach, but the idea of limited tracks being an advantage, with each part having to really count.
I wondered why this short video made me almost tear up, but her story just made me realize how much I still miss Prince, his presence here on earth, music has not been the same after he passed. RIP to the greatest musician the world has ever seen.
No, he couldn't. He could play guitar, bass, keys and drums. Just like other talented musicians such as Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder or Lenny Kravitz, to name only a few.
This was one of the most informative pieces of an interview I’ve heard here. Because for songwriters everywhere and engineers, it gives a glimpse into a masterful mind that you can then try to replicate yourself. The hardest thing for any songwriter, especially if you also write all of your own music, is keeping (as Susan said) the lanes narrow enough so that you don’t distract yourself into oblivion. Meaning destroy your creativity over objectivity… distracting yourself with anything other than the basic song. If you want to change sounds, you can do that after everything is done… Especially now. But use basic great sounds to write every one of your songs, So that your instrumentation doesn’t become the anchor that weighs you down and ultimately drowns your creativity. Very nice.
Prince was my hero. He was an absolute inspiration to me. On a personal level, I've always worked making the drums and bass as the strong point and everything else becomes ornamentation
He was a one-of-a-kind with his idea that every instrument had to be able to carry the song. I believe this is drove him to stimulants. That overwhelming desire to create magic every time on every instrument in every song. And to be uniquely Prince when doing it drove him to his death. RIP because just as long as I stay together with your music "everything is alright."
Prince was the Bob Ross of pop music - simple ingredients, simple tools, pretty much always the same colors, but quickly producing incredible art, and lots of it. Personality-wise they couldn't have been further apart, but both had a similar approach to creating their work. I'm a huge fan of both, and also paint and create music as well. This little nugget of video is incredible to hear, and I love the sphere analogy around Prince's mixes. Listen to a track like D.M.S.R. and he could (and did) showcase almost every instrument/track at some point. Very simple, yet fricking amazing.
@@joemama22 Produced, not produces - and no matter what you think, there are literally millions of Bob Ross fans around the globe who would vehemently disagree with you. Bob was a teacher as well as an artist, and while his paintings were scenic, they were real oil works and he taught (and still does teach through his shows) millions of people how to paint and use their imaginations to create. You would be hard pressed to find a better introduction to painting than Bob's shows. He is a total legend in his own right for his style of sharing his art, his gentle persona, and for teaching current and future generations for decades to come at least on how to start painting in a non-threatening and non-judgemental way. Your comment just shows your ignorance - it has no effect on Bob's legacy or Prince's, and it wasn't even Bob's paintings I was really comparing - it was their shared style of using simple ingredients to quickly produce art - and btw, Prince didn't always create masterpieces, so you can take him down off your high horse a bit. He was creating pop music, not curing cancer or doing brain surgery. Both of them are great artists in their own way - and maybe it's not even Bob's paintings themselves which is the art he created, but more his shows, which ran for 32 seasons. Name one other person who managed that in their career!
@@joemama22 Perhaps Bob Ross was used slightly tongue in cheek, just as one might wear a Motorhead Tshirt ironically, there's something to Bob and Motorhead but they ain't quite Princely.
That's exactly why my uncle used to say that his songs were PERFECT and that nothing in his songs were ever lacking and Prince even said that in an interview a LONG, LONG time ago.
Absolutely fascinating. I write and record music as a hobby and one of the most important things, to me, is to have a work flow set up to where I can bounce around from drums to guitar to bass to keys without having to waste any time changing cable routing or adjusting levels or tone. Nothing kills a good idea quicker than spending 10 minutes on your signal path.
What was so astounding about Prince and Michael Jackson for that matter is they could create a melody dancing on top of a groove just on the spur of the moment without any inspiration and it would be better then anything you could think of if you worked on it for years. That's the scope of their talent and creativity.
Keep in mind too, they were in their teens and early 20's. That's amazing. Of course, so were the Stones, Zeppelin etc., but what a talent they all had to do the things they did at those ages. To capture the hearts and minds of the rest of us who could feel it, relate to it, but didn't have the talent to do it ourselves. Tom Petty is another one. Made it look so easy it was almost criminal!
LOVED listening to this. Great insight on the recording process and that any and all recording process can be unique and beneficial depending on the artist and/or song.
Looking forward to consuming this full meal of the Prince experiences.
tmrw at 7pm. see ya there
@@katiec6935 Oh snap katie C got the inside track!? 🙂
th-cam.com/video/9Iv__walYL4/w-d-xo.html
Every business needs a person like her. An expert and true professional but not too proud to be the support structure for an artist so they can create. That in itself is an art.
Very perceptive.
I was fortunate enough to work with Susan on a couple of albums, and found her to be devoid of ego and always eager to serve the song.
She felt as though she “lucked into” her lot and never took it for granted.
She does a world class job of describing what went on in the studio!
Not an advertiser or anything, but currently reading her new book “This Is What It Sounds Like” exploring the neurology of music listening and how tastes form, and she writes as clearly and more pointedly than she speaks! She’s an MD on top of being a first rate sound engineer. Highly recommend!
@@poiesist Great recommendation!
She does has her way of words like writing.
I was thinking the same, how articulate she is and observant of course.
May be the best I've ever heard to be honest.
Susan has a great way of explaining his musicianship
Thanks for watching
Love Susan. She's real, not critical, she appreciated the genius she was working with. I honestly think she was the only person who really got how different Prince was and how beyond everyone else he was!
Dr. Susan Rogers is hands down...
"Thee Greatest Female Studio Engineer Of All Time"!!
Why is there always this separation?
I get it in sports.
But music? Sound engineering?
Singing?
Are women at a natural disadvantage? Are men?
I don't get it
I fully agree.
Had this person said something to the effect of:
Susan Rogers is the greatest sound engineer of all time.
I would be hard pressed to disagree, and it would be far more palpable.
Alan Parsons would be a close second btw ✌
You are incorrect. All of time has not occurred, therefore you have zero actual proof.
And, oh... she's a woman?! No way!! What's her ethnicity and, what are her pronouns?! Very important details that need to be shared!!
The knowledge of this woman about his arrangement is amazing.
You can clearly see her feeling profoundly touched by working with Prince.
I think I learned more about Prince in that 6min than I did in all those other hack job docs about him put together.
Me too. It couldn't have been explained any better.
That's DOCTOR Susan Rogers by the way. A doctorate in Music Cognition and Psychoacoustics, which means she knows how the fuck to make records
I'm a massive Prince fan, but Susan Rogers is ace and doesn't get nearly enough credit, so it's awesome to see her giving more and more interviews like this so we have a real insight into how things worked in the studio. Only Prince could have been Prince... but he wouldn't have been Prince without all the people around him.
Agreed. I might also add, what Frank Zappa said about his relation with Warner Bros. "To their credit the best thing they did for Prince was to stay out of his way".
That's from a business model perspective. Leave him alone and let him be uniquely him.
I find it interesting how Susan captured something similiar on how engineers learned to do the same thing- be there to help him tweek stuff, but at the same time, learn the boundaries, and do not get in his way. Smothering him or take over, and you as an engineer would be replaced. Susan picked up on how different it was to work with him then it was for other musicians and she adapted well to his work ethic.
he would’ve
Great musician to ever walk the planet.
Jesus this is an absolute gift to be able to hear these intimate stories about one of the very greatest musical minds there has ever been. Susan is like a tap of truth pouring out info of princes creative process and it comes across so damn clear that you feel like you were there too. WOW, I’m blown away and super grateful for these segments. Thank you to whomever is responsible for getting us this!
I could listen to her talk about literally anything, I love how she tells stories. Even more of a treat that she’s talking about Prince!
His genius and her brilliance were a perfect blend.
One of the coolest things of being a Prince fan is to imagine that everything came from the same mind most of the times and he had the full arrangements in his head before recording it
Most writers do. You hear everything when you write but not everyone has the skill to make to happen. Prince and all the greats did
I love how she highlighted and explained his way of thinking 💜🙏💜
Susan Rogers is a genius . She was so keen on understanding his musical creativity better than anyone could have done . To break down his music like that just shows how masterful Prince was and how she had to digress so to speak with other artist mix.
Every instrument standing on its own independently is amazing how she described his approach is inspiring .
I could listen to her talk forever. The way she speaks so tactfully and thoughtfully makes you see what she’s speaking about.
Prince had an amazing mind and was one of the most gifted and skilled musicians who ever lived!
she has a legendary super cool vibe, loved her instantly! Great storytelling
Why is it we find out too late how incredibly talented people are AFTER they leave us. I'll never be able to comprehend this.
Wow. I just learned something that opened my mind to other possibilities. Thank you 🙏
Wow fascinating. He was a genius. God the world was so different back then....I often drift off and think about how special and fun the 80's were (the time of my youth) and when it was over , that was it it was gone. When i hear Prince now it always makes me think back to the 80's.
th-cam.com/video/9Iv__walYL4/w-d-xo.html
The THING, that killed the 80s was Grunge- what a bunch of garbage!!
@@johnjeffery6638
Well Every decade has its Defining music. Grunge was just a short Hype. Boygroup music was much much worse.
Prince moved on from the 1980 ies. he as a much different musician during the 1990 ies. Did You know he was bored of Purple Rain after just 6 months
It's not just you. It was before my youth and I miss it too.
@XanthousRoom Yeah and anybody that’s chill , society will attack. You can’t win.
Good to hear a serious discussion and understanding the way of a genius.
I could listen 👂 to Susan Rodgers All day about Prince 💜
Damn Prince was a prodigy
This woman is so articulate
I like Susan’s notion of Prince’s music being like a “sphere”. Every instrument having a special surprise in it. I just finished recording and mixing one of my own songs. I put it on a mixing and mastering FB group to get feedback on the mix. Most of the replies were more focused on which singular instrument would be up front in the mix. I think it should change as the song unfolds. Thinking of it like a sphere vs a pyramid is a great way to think about a song when writing it and mixing. Thanks for this video DFD! Looking forward to more of this interview🤘
This is a very special woman💜🙏🏿
I went/graduated at Full Sail as a recording engineer because of Prince. Yes luved the artist n musician but was fascinated n obsessed inspired with the art of recording he possessed even moreso. Was hard finding bits in books back in 1988 about his studio skills but what little there was fully excited me to pursue it. Been a recording engineer ever since🙏🏻
th-cam.com/video/9Iv__walYL4/w-d-xo.html
I can do that
Hat's off! Full Sail,1986
I love hearing what it was like to work with Prince in the studio! Behind the scenes peek of a genius at work. Thank you Susan!!
Wow. I sincerely appreciate the way in which she describes not just the approach, but the idea of limited tracks being an advantage, with each part having to really count.
Listen to Young Marble Giants 'Colossal Youth' or PiL's 'Public Image (First Issue)' to hear others doing this.
She is a great storyteller as Prince is a musician
Certified musical genius. What a privilege to have been able to work with such an incredible talent…
Privilege?
Susan is incredible!
I love Susan's insight.
I wondered why this short video made me almost tear up, but her story just made me realize how much I still miss Prince, his presence here on earth, music has not been the same after he passed. RIP to the greatest musician the world has ever seen.
Thank You Susan, Thank You Sunset.
Super excellent
This was probably the most educational and inspiring 5.5-minutes of distilled insight I've experiences in a LONG time.
Thank you!
He was a very talented artist, he could play every instrument .
No, he couldn't. He could play guitar, bass, keys and drums. Just like other talented musicians such as Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder or Lenny Kravitz, to name only a few.
That is why he did not use session musicians.
This is FANTASTIC! Thank you.....
Prince was a BOSS user!
Susan is extraordinary
I worked with Susan on the Westerberg record 14 songs...genius!!!
Dr. Rogers puts it better than any other regarding Prince. You know without a doubt how deeply she really knew the artist.
I really appreciate how well Prince is explained in this interview.. fantastic!!!
I was just enjoying the remix of "Revolver," so this talk of "only" 24 tracks makes me smile.
A Ton of Value..Thanks
Prince was a Tesla of His Music!Panoramic,in Thought,to Encompass,Everything to Convey,his Point😮😊!🐯😃😎❣
Great breakdown of Prince's methodology of sound.
I love Susan. I always wondered what his thinking looked like inside his head. Probably a kaleidoscope of thoughts. Amazing!!!
This was one of the most informative pieces of an interview I’ve heard here. Because for songwriters everywhere and engineers, it gives a glimpse into a masterful mind that you can then try to replicate yourself. The hardest thing for any songwriter, especially if you also write all of your own music, is keeping (as Susan said) the lanes narrow enough so that you don’t distract yourself into oblivion.
Meaning destroy your creativity over objectivity… distracting yourself with anything other than the basic song. If you want to change sounds, you can do that after everything is done… Especially now. But use basic great sounds to write every one of your songs, So that your instrumentation doesn’t become the anchor that weighs you down and ultimately drowns your creativity.
Very nice.
Prince was my hero. He was an absolute inspiration to me. On a personal level, I've always worked making the drums and bass as the strong point and everything else becomes ornamentation
Awesomel! In the beautiful way she describes Prince way of working, you know already that she was the perfect choice for him!
What a brilliant insight 😘
i can see why prince loved working with her. Amazing soul
Susan was perfect for Prince. An ace.
This is, Reinventing Energy And Love ✊🏿 ❤️
That's some cool deep insight. Love this kinda stuff. She described it so good, it's like she puts you right in the room.
AAAMMMAAZZZIIINNNGGG!!! Thank you Susan Rogers for putting it in such nice words. Thank you Sunset Sound Recorders
Wow! What a fantastic interview! Susan talks with such knowledge and musical authority! X
Incredible explanation.
He was a one-of-a-kind with his idea that every instrument had to be able to carry the song. I believe this is drove him to stimulants. That overwhelming desire to create magic every time on every instrument in every song. And to be uniquely Prince when doing it drove him to his death. RIP because just as long as I stay together with your music "everything is alright."
Great insight.
Love the flavor analogy. How beautiful!
Great interview. Let her flow. Very informative. Finally an interviewer that does not interject themselves. Great job gentlemen.
G*D, I love hearing her talk about these things. What a gift she was to Prince at that time.
Susan is an incredible communicator. As a once-in-a-while studio player, I hope I'm ever lucky enough to encounter an engineer like her in the flesh!
The lesson for modern producers is at the end, find your template and get to work, stop scrolling endless presets and samples
Thanks for the insights Susan!
Wow, absolutely incredible description... this is pure gold.
🔥🔥🔥 these talks are like priceless DIAMONDS 💯💯💯
a very pleasant woman to listen to.
Super interesting...even to a non-musician who loves music..and Prince. Thank you! ☮💃🏽
She explains the process so well, that’s why she was there working for, or should I say wíth Prince ❤
when will they start releasing some of the songs that were in the vault when he passed?
Prince was the Bob Ross of pop music - simple ingredients, simple tools, pretty much always the same colors, but quickly producing incredible art, and lots of it. Personality-wise they couldn't have been further apart, but both had a similar approach to creating their work. I'm a huge fan of both, and also paint and create music as well. This little nugget of video is incredible to hear, and I love the sphere analogy around Prince's mixes. Listen to a track like D.M.S.R. and he could (and did) showcase almost every instrument/track at some point. Very simple, yet fricking amazing.
You are insulting Prince by comparing him to Bob Ross... Ross produces tacky waiting room art....
@@joemama22 Produced, not produces - and no matter what you think, there are literally millions of Bob Ross fans around the globe who would vehemently disagree with you. Bob was a teacher as well as an artist, and while his paintings were scenic, they were real oil works and he taught (and still does teach through his shows) millions of people how to paint and use their imaginations to create. You would be hard pressed to find a better introduction to painting than Bob's shows. He is a total legend in his own right for his style of sharing his art, his gentle persona, and for teaching current and future generations for decades to come at least on how to start painting in a non-threatening and non-judgemental way. Your comment just shows your ignorance - it has no effect on Bob's legacy or Prince's, and it wasn't even Bob's paintings I was really comparing - it was their shared style of using simple ingredients to quickly produce art - and btw, Prince didn't always create masterpieces, so you can take him down off your high horse a bit. He was creating pop music, not curing cancer or doing brain surgery. Both of them are great artists in their own way - and maybe it's not even Bob's paintings themselves which is the art he created, but more his shows, which ran for 32 seasons. Name one other person who managed that in their career!
@@joemama22 Perhaps Bob Ross was used slightly tongue in cheek, just as one might wear a Motorhead Tshirt ironically, there's something to Bob and Motorhead but they ain't quite Princely.
@@BillVincent - Bob Ross was a THIEF. He stole his technique from his mentor, Bill Alexander.
Head? Sister? Prince was incredible!!!!
Amazing
She is so incredibly cool to listen to
That's exactly why my uncle used to say that his songs were PERFECT and that nothing in his songs were ever lacking and Prince even said that in an interview a LONG, LONG time ago.
Absolutely fascinating. I write and record music as a hobby and one of the most important things, to me, is to have a work flow set up to where I can bounce around from drums to guitar to bass to keys without having to waste any time changing cable routing or adjusting levels or tone. Nothing kills a good idea quicker than spending 10 minutes on your signal path.
Never call music a hobby
It’s an insult to yourself
Just my opinion
SOOOO EPIC!!! Just watched the whole interview
What was so astounding about Prince and Michael Jackson for that matter is they could create a melody dancing on top of a groove just on the spur of the moment without any inspiration and it would be better then anything you could think of if you worked on it for years. That's the scope of their talent and creativity.
I could listen to this woman all day 🤎🇬🇧
What a fantastic story and way of telling it!
insightful
Appreciate Susan’s shares and wisdom. Great insights about limits and using the same tools.
Priceless
Great content! I really enjoyed the insight.
Incredible insight to this 🤘
Keep in mind too, they were in their teens and early 20's. That's amazing. Of course, so were the Stones, Zeppelin etc., but what a talent they all had to do the things they did at those ages. To capture the hearts and minds of the rest of us who could feel it, relate to it, but didn't have the talent to do it ourselves.
Tom Petty is another one. Made it look so easy it was almost criminal!
Watch the documentary, The Wrecking Crew on YT. These performers had a LOT of help, even instruction.
A living record of the work of a master.
I like to see her pass this experience on.
This is killer!!
I've learned more from this five-minute video than from years banging my head gainst DAWs and VSTs
This is brilliant. Thank you!
She’s incredible!
2:16 the best mixes are the ones you can listen to whatever instrument or voice you choose and it stands out. So great if you can get that
LOVED listening to this. Great insight on the recording process and that any and all recording process can be unique and beneficial depending on the artist and/or song.
Thank you for this video ❤🎉❤